Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Nanny Tells All!

You've seen it at the grocery store, right? The latest ripped-from-reality expose of famous parents and their kids, told by the nanny/housekeeper/gardener/tutor/insert-function-here.Makes me think: Is there a single one of us who'd want a member of our family (since most of us don't have staff) to go public with their real life stories? I certainly wouldn't want my temper tantrums, sarcasm, rudeness and occasional immaturity put out into the public arena. And yet as human beings, that's what we're drawn to--tales of other people's failings. Is it because we can measure ourselves against outrageous behavior and feel relieved? After all, we're not that bad. I might drop the occasional F-bomb, but at least I'm not allowing my under-age kids to drink. Or to drive one of our many cars around the estate (yeah, okay, we don't have an estate. but still...). I'm not that bad.We're not that bad.Are we?Given money and fame and adulation, surrounded by people who we pay to tell us what we want to hear, insulated from many of life's inconveniences, how would we be? Who would we be?Would we be that bad?

2 comments:

We are a strange species, aren't we?? So drawn to all the smut. Definitely some good fuel for thought here, Mrs. Ditter. By the way, I'm loving your book rec. column. I will definitely have to check out the Lauren Kessler one. I'm sure it would be more relevant to my life right now than I care to admit.

I think I would be that bad. Not in the driving around the estate drunk way, but surely in the uncivilized, drinks out of the milk bottle way, or the drove down the highway holding onto the child's arm with the passenger door partway open kind of way.

What I'm Reading Right Now (or recently finished)

The Song of the Quarkbeast, by Jasper Fforde. Thanks to the glories of Powell's book buying department, I usually have credit to use in the vast aisles of Powell's bookstore. A recent wander through the downtown store while waiting for swim team practice to finish yielded an armload of books, most of them YA fantasy (one of my guilty pleasure genres). I'll be reading this one in conjunction with the Bill Bryson book, because I just can't read one book at a time.

Discover, January/February 2014. Lucky me! With the oldest girl on the other coast at university, I get her copies of both Runner's World and Discovery. This issue proclaims itself to be THE YEAR IN SCIENCE and includes 100 top stories from 2013. If you couldn't get enough about the discovery of Richard III's bones in a Leicester parking lot or learning how to conquer your cat allergy, grab this issue.

Murder with Peacocks, by Donna Andrews. Just finished this decent mystery. If you like wacky families, misunderstandings, a small bit of romance, not-too-threatening murderers, and humorous aggravation, this first book in a series is probably for you.

At Home, A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson. Those of you who know Bill Bryson know that he doesn't write anything "short" -- with the exception of his book on Shakespeare. I'm just starting this intriguing book, in which he wanders around his home (a Victorian parsonage somewhere in England) looking at doorknobs and spices and commodes and then tells us about them. I'm on page 20, so I have like 450 pages to go. Could I get a bad cold, please, and be forced to lie on the couch and read this?